San Francisco, CA — In solidarity with rebellions in Mexico, over 400 workers and students marched in San Francisco’s main commercial center. PLP members joined the demonstration with signs and flyers linking State Terrorism in Mexico to the systematic, state-sponsored racist imprisonment and murder of black and Latin youth in the U.S.
PLP is organizing for another demonstration on Dec. 3 to build international working-class unity. The crowd was mainly young and Latin without delegations from “traditional” non-governmental organizations or immigrant-oriented unions.
There is no “democracy.” There is no justice — there’s just us, the working class. Only a revolution against capitalism will get these murderers out of power. That is the goal of the communist Progressive Labor Party. Join us!
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NEW YORK CITY, November 21 — “Ayotzinapa vive, vive, la lucha sigue, sigue!” (Ayotzinapa: lives, lives! The struggle continues, continues!) So chanted over 100 black, white, Asian, and Latin workers picketing at the Mexican consulate with signs linking the police murder of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri to the murder of 43 students in Ayotzinapa, Mexico in a loud and spirited demonstration. This event was the product of weeks of planning and organization by professors, students and other members of the Progressive Labor Party, who organized through their participation in several different mass organizations. By linking the struggle in Ayotzinapa with the struggle in Ferguson, PL’ers and friends exposed capitalism as the root cause of the murders in both places and called for internationalism as the answer.
Organizing to Fight
PL’ers organized in multiple mass organizations to build for this demonstration:
PLP educators in one union sent comrades in a different union a copy of the resolution which they had attempted to pass, calling for teachers to come to the November 21 demonstration at the consulate. PLP students and teachers then discussed the rally in their classes and with their coworkers, helping guarantee the makeup of the rally to include black and Asian youth as well.
At another teacher’s union monthly meeting, a PL’er managed to get the resolution placed on the day’s agenda, including a call for the leadership to invite the entire membership, which amounts to tens of thousands of workers. While some union misleaders attempted to bait the members with thinly veiled anti-communism, it did not sway the membership and it passed unanimously.
PLP members spoke in three different union committees calling for solidarity with the 43 kidnapped and murdered students in Ayotzinapa. We exposed the connection between the government, police, the army and drug cartels there. We connected the racist attacks in Mexico to racist police terror in Ferguson, Missouri to Brooklyn, and Staten Island, New York to applause from members and friends of the group.
PL’ers and our friends who meet in a study group translated and distributed 200 flyers in various meetings. One comrade used the leaflet in English class to talk in English about the protest and to invite interested students to a discussion after class. Another comrade from Mexico described the history of rural schools for teachers like the one in Ayotzinapa which has a long history of revolutionary struggle in farming areas.
In one community organization, we worked hard and enthusiastically. As a result, 25 people of all ages came to the protest with signs they made. They also chanted and leafleted. It’s ties like the ones we are building at our jobs and community organizations that give us the opportunity to know many people over a long period of time and win more of them to internationalism and other elements of our analysis, even though illusions about reforming the system persist.
March and Build for Internationalism
The bullhorn was kept hidden in a bag until it was time for speeches. One speech in Spanish portrayed how corrupt the Mexican government is. Another speaker from PLP linked the whole murder to capitalism and imperialism, and the increasing attacks on the working class; the cartels are a key part of capitalism. The final speech was from a professor who had just returned from the protests in Mexico. She discussed how inspiring they were and how they sparked a great amount of rage. PLP will continue to build our Party in the midst of the struggles in Mexico and the U.S.
One union misleader showed up and made sure to get a photo opportunity with the protest as the background. But it was the collective organization of PLP that gave leadership to the protest and distributed hundreds of leaflets and over 100 CHALLENGEs.
Returning to our neighborhood the participants were upbeat and eager to continue the struggle. To reach hundreds more with the message that only communist revolution could end the constant misery of fascist disappearances of young people, some members and friends plan to read a message in their churches in order to call for plans to show solidarity and support for the struggle to build resistance and communist revolution in Mexico. ¡La lucha sigue!
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MEXICO CITY — The murder and disappearance of our 43 student-teachers in the the Raúl Isidro Burgos Rural Teachers’ College of Ayotzinapa that have shocked workers worldwide is the product of a capitalist system that has nothing to offer our youth. The massive protests in Mexico show that this crime is a painful thorn stuck in the heart of the international working class. The murders indicate the increasing development of fascism in Mexico, where in addition to using liberal misleaders and electoral politics to control the working class, the bosses rely increasingly on open violence and terror. Only under a system where exploitation has been eliminated — communism — will we ever have justice and an end to fascist police terror. We must not expect justice from the same capitalist state that murders our youth!
Guerrero is predominantly rural and one of the poorest states in Mexico, with a long tradition of insurgent movements. For this reason the ruling class has set up in this state a sophisticated repressive apparatus involving the police, the military and drug lords. These groups, some of them trained and financed by the U.S. with support of the local Mexican bosses, are responsible for the murder and disappearance of our youth.
According to the World Bank, 60 percent of youth in the world lack education and job opportunities. In Mexico that number is 70 percent. Conditions for the remaining youth are not much better: existing jobs are precarious, with miserable salaries, no benefits, long and exhausting work hours, with some working 12-hour days, seven days a week. Mexico is one of the countries in which the working class works the most hours per year.
The electoral political parties would have us believe that the local mayor of the town of Iguala, José Luis Abarca, the Governor of Guerrero state Angel Aguirre, or President Peña are the ones responsible for the disappearances, and that if we get rid of them and elect different politicians, all our problems would be solved. That’s a lie! They will not lead the working class to overthrow the capitalist system because they serve it. Capitalism killed and disappeared our youth, and for that we must destroy it.
For decades, rural teachers have earned the sympathy of the working class because of their commitment to educating working-class youth in these impoverished communities. For this reason the bosses of liberal NGO Mexicanos Primero and the capitalist media like Televisa and TV Azteca have publicly accused rural schools of being “guerrilla training places” that must be eliminated. But the real aim of this campaign was the approval of the lucrative education reform, which will generate huge profits from turning education into more of a commodity and which will benefit the groups promoting it.
Ayotzinapa is
Mexico’s Ferguson
Ayotzinapa is not an isolated case of police terror. Countless number of unarmed black and Latin youth are killed by the police from Ayotzinapa to Ferguson, Missouri. On the other side of the world, immigrants in many European countries face mass deportations and are terrorized and massacred by the police.
The top imperialists in the world, the U.S., China, Russia, and the European Union, are preparing for world war, and aim to push our youth to fight their war. We workers must win our youth to fight against the capitalist system which can only offer working-class youth oppression, unemployment, and death. We must win them to become organized in our international communist party, the Progressive Labor Party, to lead a communist revolution to put an end to fascism, capitalist oppression and war.
